I'm for permanent death. It was never my point to say it's bad or I'm concerned about my own character's life. I'm concerned about high rates of trivial death which don't seem to have any rhyme or reason but to construct a high turn over and give stories blunt wolf ends.

I think maybe it's a carried over sentiment from games like Atonement or Parallel, but it doesn't make sense to me in Utterby. That's just my opinion however, and if other people think it makes sense that's fine too. I'm probably playing the wrong game.

To say that "blunt wolf ends" or other silly ends didn't occur in SoI is inaccurate, but it's true enough that it didn't occur with as much alarming frequency in the latter stages of the old game as it does now in this game, especially with Atonement Engine's admittedly more brutal code.

But I think we can all agree this stuff will peter out as the game is more developed, players become more experienced and preventative measures (gear/building additions like fortifications) get added in.

Though the standing issue of "skill levels being low enough that it isn't scaled too well" is in my opinion pretty relevant, because it's another issue that on its own causes people to seek ways to bump those low-starting skills up before making themselves useful in any capacity to the rest of the playerbase.

Last edited by WorkerDrone on Wed Feb 18, 2015 10:07 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I hope you die right now, will you drink my chemical?

Brian wrote:See, the thing that I admire about WorkerDrone is that he's an optimist!

Is there a reason for a lumber town settlement to be in heavy orc territory? My only gripe is that I guess I can't reconcile the setting and the game balance. If it's an outpost for soldiers to beat back the encroachment from the Mirk, great. High danger and risk makes sense. Suicidal tendencies make sense.

Maybe there is more to Utterby's danger, and I'm sure there is storywise. Maybe I'm missing the work of RPAs that makes sense out of things.

In my opinion, folks are taking the wrong approach to trying to figure out why their characters are in Utterby. Utterby might be a potential boom, but ultimately - we know it's a bust. Mirkwood only gets worse.

I compare it to Moria. The dwarves dug too deep there, against good judgement. Why? Greed. Same reason why people try to profiteer in the most dangerous areas of the real world (see: Africa).

Utterby isn't a bastion of civilization. It's the opposite. It's a frontier town in what is currently, and arguably, the most dangerous region of the entire world. If people start keeping that in mind as they develop their backgrounds, then the culture and atmosphere of the setting will begin to sink in.

What I think people have difficulty reconciling, at the heart of it all, is their own expectations of what kind of game SOI should be. Some prefer something more akin to Minas Tirith/Ithilien. That's not Utterby, or Mirkwood, though.

These PCs are here for profit (or for other reasons), and they are here unwisely.

Ava wrote:I think you're right, and I'm probably playing the wrong game

You may prefer Lake-town, when the setting moves that way. There's definitely some thematic overlap, but I think the day-to-day level of danger for most characters [who aren't looking for trouble] should be noticeably lower there.

Songweaver wrote:I compare it to Moria. The dwarves dug too deep there, against good judgement. Why? Greed. Same reason why people try to profiteer in the most dangerous areas of the real world (see: Africa).

Songweaver wrote:These PCs are here for profit (or for other reasons), and they are here unwisely.

EltanimRas wrote:\What kind of game are you looking for?

I guess one that doesn't lead to either having a character who isn't primarily driven by greed, or one who isn't a hardened soldier/ranger, or an 'other' who is here despite all there being little to make someone logically stay. I made a flowchart jokingly, but only semi-jokingly. I think I expected a Tolkien game to feel a lot different than this, but I'll hold out that Laketown is different and maybe return then.

Ava wrote:I think I expected a Tolkien game to feel a lot different than this, but I'll hold out that Laketown is different and maybe return then.

It's become a bit of a dead horse argument, I know, but it is important to remember that this is alpha. Utterby really is just a staging area toward the end product of the game. In a lot of ways, it's the expected game in miniature, boiled down to its extremes (which you illustrated beautifully). As the game develops, it will expand and there will be more and more room for nuance.

That said, I'd hope you wouldn't give up prematurely on the current game. I don't think it's impossible to create a character whose motivations fall outside those categories.

Ava wrote:Is there a reason for a lumber town settlement to be in heavy orc territory?

I believe the answer to this question (and it's a very good one) is that ALL of Mirkwood is dangerous to some extent or the other, and Utterby is NOT an extraordinarily dangerous place by Mirkwood standards.

The death you're seeing IG is a mixture of Alpha-wrongness, balance issues being worked out, and the idiocy of certain players who shall go unnamed. Despite Songweaver's thematic comparison, which I'm sure he did not mean to be taken literally, Utterby is NOT Moria.

I believe there is some confusion as to how dangerous Utterby really is, and also as to how dangerous Utterby APPEARS to be - all of this needs ironing out, and I'm certain it will be, given time.

Incidentally, it heartens me to see you ask this sort of question because thematic disconnects are one of the biggest things that bother me, and I have historically been something of a minority in that view.

Songweaver wrote:Utterby isn't a bastion of civilization. It's the opposite. It's a frontier town in what is currently, and arguably, the most dangerous region of the entire world. If people start keeping that in mind as they develop their backgrounds, then the culture and atmosphere of the setting will begin to sink in.

What I think people have difficulty reconciling, at the heart of it all, is their own expectations of what kind of game SOI should be. Some prefer something more akin to Minas Tirith/Ithilien. That's not Utterby, or Mirkwood, though.

Ava wrote:I guess one that doesn't lead to either having a character who isn't primarily driven by greed, or one who isn't a hardened soldier/ranger, or an 'other' who is here despite all there being little to make someone logically stay.

I think this is a significant problem, and one that has historically been somewhat overlooked. I feel that the present admin vision (and I believe that to some extent this is a legacy from both Caolafon and the Atonement settings) focuses very heavily on 'THIS is the game' to the exclusion of all else.

Allowing for a wide variety of character concepts has been, at least in Utterby, deliberately decided against. Admins have a strong vision of what the average PC ought to look like, and that average PC is uneducated, poor, and likely from a rural background.

For me, personally, my backgrounds have a great deal to do with WHO the PC is - and these limitations on education, affluence, and exposure all have a vastly crippling affect on my choices, and ultimately, the PCs that I can play.

And even if players are allowed to roll non-standard issue PCs, these are allowances. The game is not designed to accommodate any style of play other than the 'main theme'.

I really hope that when we move out of Alpha and into Laketown, that the larger, more urban setting is more Minas Tirith in style, and by this I do NOT mean a return to a billion-clan game, or Fellowships, or Rogues, or whatever.

I mean that it should allow for a great variety of character backgrounds and concepts to flourish.

Songweaver wrote:In my opinion, folks are taking the wrong approach to trying to figure out why their characters are in Utterby. Utterby might be a potential boom, but ultimately - we know it's a bust. Mirkwood only gets worse.

I compare it to Moria. The dwarves dug too deep there, against good judgement. Why? Greed. Same reason why people try to profiteer in the most dangerous areas of the real world (see: Africa).

Utterby isn't a bastion of civilization. It's the opposite. It's a frontier town in what is currently, and arguably, the most dangerous region of the entire world. If people start keeping that in mind as they develop their backgrounds, then the culture and atmosphere of the setting will begin to sink in.

What I think people have difficulty reconciling, at the heart of it all, is their own expectations of what kind of game SOI should be. Some prefer something more akin to Minas Tirith/Ithilien. That's not Utterby, or Mirkwood, though.

These PCs are here for profit (or for other reasons), and they are here unwisely.

This exactly. The populace here are not necessarily the homey set-up a farm types. They were drawn by iron, by lumber, and by profit away from somewhere else. Not to say it's better where they came from, but through rumor or hope, Utterby is a destination for something -better-.

But it's a frontier, and it looks like the settlers are finding out things aren't as pleasant as they wanted - orcs, wargs, and danger. This is roughly the case for many boom settlements. The Mirkwood, whilst inviting - was ultimately sinister.

I think a lot of the RP concerns of like, 'oh, another death' can be reconciled with the fact that YES, people -are- dying. Maybe someone painted your character a better picture, and you're stuck, maybe someone sold you on the idea of easy money, and now you're in between a rock and a hard place. But guess what? You've got to deal with it - and I think that creates a lot of opportunities for RP. Your characters don't have to all become hardened gritty numb-to-death badasses - maybe it turns some people into basket cases, criminals, anything to try and get out to safety. And maybe some just turn into big damn heroes.

Middle Earth always seemed, at least to me, to always be about the light shining -through- the darkness, rather than the lack of danger, death, or evil, and the heroic measures the characters take to surpass it.

'Familiar' skills are pretty decent, considering that most 'good' combat chars in the RPI engine is generally when a char has talented weapon/style and familiar deflect.

And if someone already has talented deflect, then wtf, things don't need to change. It took me 1.5 YEARS to raise a char to that in Atonement (albeit from novice). Talented deflect in a month is insane.

And if someone already has talented deflect, then wtf, things don't need to change. It took me 1.5 YEARS to raise a char to that in Atonement (albeit from novice). Talented deflect in a month is insane.

Well, it's probably one of the first batch of PCs. It used to be that starting skills were heavily influenced by stats, including deflect, so someone with high dex and int could start with familiar deflect. Going from, say, low/mid-familiar to talented in a month sounds much more feasible. Of course, this was hugely broken and got changed pretty quickly.